Recent reviews by Tanweth, the Coffin Crusher

This remake is exactly what it needs to be. It has some annoyances and jank (albeit far less than the original), it's not going to give From Soft a run for their money in terms of gripping combat, and it is very much old school. If you are expecting a much more accessible RPG than the original, this won't fit the bill (though it does make some small concessions there like difficulty settings and much better controls). However, it keeps the design philosophy of Gothic alive while modernizing the visuals, audio, interface, and fleshing it out with some well-written and integrated additional content.

Gothic is still a very engaging setting with memorable characters and a world well worth experiencing. If you like an old school RPG that on top of that has a lot of friction at the start but makes your progress feel well-earned, that is bereft of quest markers or passively regenerating health and mana and even a map until you buy one, then I highly recommend this. Looking forward to (hopefully) a remake of Gothic 2 next, and I hope this signals to the powers that be that old school crunchy RPGs still can get big numbers.

This is a game I have a particular attachment to, it being the first TES game I eagerly awaited and got hyped about after enjoying Morrowind. I got it at release and played it intensely as a young lad.

This remaster is in some ways incredible. The visuals are extremely impressive. Tonally they are very different from the high fantasy visual style with excessive bloom that OG Oblivion had, and have gone for a much more realistic aesthetic. I don't personally mind this though: the old visuals were very much a relict of mid-2000s fantasy games and I like the new realistic aesthetic that takes full advantage of UE5's capabilities. Even the audio is a significant improvement over the original, though I do wish they also expanded the somewhat limited musical score (Skyrim had a much larger and more varied score). The visual and audio overhaul makes this go far beyond what you'd typically consider a remaster.

It also makes some very welcome, albeit limited, gameplay changes. Combat is much the same as it was, but has much more visual and audio feedback that makes it feel more engaging, though it's still certainly not going to hold up to modern action RPGs terribly well still. The new leveling system is excellent. It really does a great job of bringing in some leveling mechanics from Skyrim that make it less fiddly and min-maxy, but you still pick a class and your choice of skills still matter. There are other small changes that still have a significant impact that you find during gameplay.

Otherwise, for better or worse, this is much the same as it was in 2006. There is a certain charm to seeing the OG jank of the ambitious NPC interaction systems of the original shine through on what is otherwise a shiny new looking game. It is a difficult balance deciding what to change for a remaster vs preserve from the original, and no matter what choices you make there will be detractors, so I don't blame Virtuos too much for the light touch.

That said, there are some systems that really would benefit from overhauling:
- Changing the level scaling philosophy to be closer to Skyrim's. Oblivion's infamously aggressive level scaling is still alive and well
- Getting rid of level scaled item rewards. It's very frustrating getting one of the best items in the game at a stage where its... not one of the best items just because you finished the quest too early.
- Improving the abysmal enemy AI. While it's slightly entertaining nearly missing a bow or spell shot four times trying to hit an enemy and them being completely oblivious to obvious murder attempts, or an enemy seeing you shoot and kill their comrade right next to them and be completely unphased, the AI really should've been updated to better match Skyrim's.
- Updating the stealth to work more like Skyrim's where you have intermediate awareness levels and enemies searching for you instead of just a binary they've detected you or they haven't would've been appreciated
- The UI is improved in this over the original, but still inherits some of the original's annoyances, like selling items individually and confirming each sale one by one, and having no way to select an entire stack of items, etc.

Fortunately, there's already a robust modding scene and at least the level scaling piecing can be easily improved with mods. Some of the others may also see some attention too as modding capabilities improve.

Also, despite Oblivion's long status as being considered a bit of the ugly middle child between Morrowind and Skyrim, it has a lot to recommend it. I think its traditional high fantasy setting is very well realized, and it has some of the best quest writing in the series. Plus, it's just more Elder Scrolls, and that's never a bad thing.

If you never played Oblivion before and you're expecting a highly polished modern fantasy open world game, this won't be it. It looks incredible and holds up very well graphically to current games, but under the hood this is still a product of its time. But it was a great game then, and still is great fun to play now. If you don't mind a little (frequently entertaining) jank, character models and animations that clearly aren't mocapped, and some outdated systems, this is a wonderfully realized, fun, and engaging open world RPG. Open worlds have gotten a bit of a bad rap justifiably due to the parade of open world games full of mindless checklist activities to try to make the world not seem empty. This game reminds us that no one still does open worlds like Bethesda: a world where it actually pays to explore and where exploring actually feels like an adventure where you don't know what you might find, rather than just set dressing in between quest objectives.

I never got around to playing the mod this is based on despite being a big Skyrim fan, but experiencing the standalone game as an unfamiliar player I can definitely say I had a fantastic experience. I think it says something that my primary complaint about the game is how short it is (but that shouldn't stop you from deciding to buy it and enjoy a wild and wonderful 10-15 hour ride). If you like story-driven RPGs and immersive sandboxes, this game will scratch an itch that few can. Think Disco Elysium (albeit faster paced and a little less dialog-heavy) mixed with bits of Dishonored and Skyrim (albeit with much less combat).

The game does a great job of starting you off in a strange setting with a puzzling mystery at its core, but giving you plenty of threads (each of them intriguing mysteries in their own right) to follow in order to slowly unravel that mystery. Each thread has interesting twists and turns that neatly fit into the broader mystery in often surprising ways. It also helps that they are bolstered by a cast of very detailed characters with their own distinct personalities and believable motivations.

Time loop mechanics are often a bit gimmicky, but it fits into this game nicely. Not only does it fit into the plot surprisingly well, but it also encourages creative ways to solve the mysteries where you think beyond just what you can do in a single loop. They also did a good job of not making it tedious by providing systems such as a little helper you can ask to complete quests from previous loops for you in new ones, and by providing a surprisingly high amount of new dialog options based on what you learned in previous loops to keep repeat conversations interesting.

It also helps that I'm a sucker for depictions of classical civilizations in video games, and this game does a superb job of it. The architecture and world-building are so good this game could be used in a museum to simulate an ancient Roman city, and are integral to the game's excellent environmental storytelling. I particularly enjoyed how the city also includes beautiful depictions of Egyptian and Sumerian architecture in ruined undercities to show that the titular forgotten city has seen the rise and fall of multiple civilizations.

My complaints are few, but there are a few things that would've made this game even better for me:
- The game includes an extended segment that is one of the few places where you actually engage in combat (and a little platforming). I enjoyed it as a change of pace, but I didn't enjoy how linear it was. For a game that is normally very open-ended, this linear segment felt like a missed opportunity.
- The facial animations are certainly nothing to stare in wonder at this side of 2006, but the game's zoomed in perspective in dialog certainly emphasizes them. That said, I wouldn't expect a new 3 person team to shell out for motion capture.
- The game includes many elements of immersive sandbox games like Thief or Dishonored (albeit much lighter on combat), but it still isn't as rich in alternate paths as those games, which I think limits its replay potential.
- I do wish the game had a little more detail to character creation and your background had more impact on how the game plays out. In, for example, Disco Elysium (or even Dishonored), how you build your character heavily defines your playthrough and how you interact with the world. The lack of any skill system or opportunities to build your character also feel like missed opportunities for making this game feel more dynamic and replayable, though also understandable considering how small the team is.

Path of Exile has carved itself out as an ARPG staple over the years, and shows no signs of diminishing anytime soon. For starters, it is perhaps the most generous free-to-play game that I have ever played. One where there are certainly helpful mtx to be had (such as specialized stash tabs to make organizing loot easier), but you can comfortably play without ever making a purchase and, short of occasional global announcements about sales, never feel like you're even being pushed to do so. And the content updates (always free) are so regular and meaty that that if you step away from the game for a year or two then pick it up again, it feels like a very different experience than the last time you played it.

As a consequence, I have spent more money on this game over the years than I have most. Not because I felt I had to, but because I felt the developers deserved the support.

The game itself introduced some radical and welcome changes to the Diablo-like gameplay formula, such as a highly-customizable skill system and non-linear classes that only determine where you start on the passive skill tree. However, they seem less radical now since other games in the genre have begun to follow suit.

It is not for the faint of heart, since it is very easy to end up making a build that is not very viable end-game. However, if you don't mind taking the time to learn the game's systems and experiment (and look at the extensive library of build guides that are constantly getting theorycrafted to give you at least a starting point for exploration), it is a very rewarding game that allows you to create a character that truly feels unique. I tend to gravitate toward bow characters, but despite often sticking to that same archetype, every new bow character I play feels very unlike the previous ones I've made because of how deep the build systems are. Between that and knowing that every time I come back, there's going to be plenty of new content for me to explore, Path of Exile is a game that I have always returned to since I started playing it in its early days.